Man linked to gun said 'bomber' was best friend

Thursday

Jul 24, 2014 at 12:01 AM

BOSTON — A man linked to a gun used to kill a university police officer days after the Boston Marathon bombings told police he smoked marijuana every day because, in his words, "my best friend was the bomber," according to court documents.

DENISE LAVOIE

BOSTON — A man linked to a gun used to kill a university police officer days after the Boston Marathon bombings told police he smoked marijuana every day because, in his words, "my best friend was the bomber," according to court documents.

Stephen Silva was arrested Monday on charges of heroin trafficking and possession of a handgun with an obliterated serial number. The same gun was used to kill MIT police Officer Sean Collier during a manhunt for the bombing suspects, according to two people with knowledge of the case who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Silva, 21, was a high school classmate and a close friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a suspect in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260. Collier, 26, was ambushed several days later and shot multiple times in his car.

According to another friend, George Hinson, Silva and his twin brother, Steven, both initially enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went, but the twins eventually transferred to the UMass campus in Boston.

"Steven was the pretty boy. Stephen was sort of the laid-back one," Hinson said.

Silva was arrested on marijuana charges at a train station in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood in November. According to court documents, after transit police found two bags of marijuana and a wad of $555 in cash in Silva's pockets, he repeatedly told them, "I smoke a lot of weed every day because my best friend was the bomber."

Hinson, who attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin school with the Silva twins and Tsarnaev, said Silva's arrest came as a shock.

"He would not have given (Tsarnaev) the gun or hidden it if he knew he was a terrorist," Hinson said. "Tsarnaev probably gave him a different story. He probably just wanted to make sure his friend was protected."

Cordelia van Heeckeren, who lives on the same floor of the high-rise apartment building in Cambridge where the Silva twins lived with their parents, said she was stunned when she saw FBI agents with hacksaws and other tools preparing to enter the Silvas' apartment Monday. She said both twins seemed to have a regular group of friends and were generally well-behaved.